Cape Town - Day 3, 16th Nov
Posted by Della Parsons on Saturday, November 28, 2009
I was up bright and early eager to make the most of another day-off and to try and plan my much anticipated Shark Cage Diving adventure. Both the diving and the sharks scared the living daylights out of me but I was determined that in my year of doing things 'big and brave' I should face both of these head on and go for it! The girls and I had also booked up to go horse-riding on Noordhoek Beach later on – far more civilised and decidedly less scary so I needed to find something to keep me occupied in the morning. Piers soon sorted that by informing me that actually I wasn't on a day off after all – but was down to work the boat! I thought my two days of work commitments had been Wednesday and Thursday – both corporate sailing days. Apparently the Wednesday was only late afternoon and evening – which Piers didn't count as a working day! Harrumph!
Actually it was nice to be back working on the boat again. The morning passed moving sails up to the loft to check them over, sorting out the returned clean laundry for everyone and doing a small sail repair on our Yankee 1 foresail – which after patching required hand-stitching. I took great pleasure in doing it and Mike R who came along to inspect the result declared it to be “the cutest little sail repair” he'd ever seen!
There was just time to jump in taxi to Lou's hotel to the jump in another taxi to go to the horse-riding place. Kirsten had been coming in to pick us up but a last minute change of plan meant a couple of frantic (and expensive) taxi rides. This was not helped by the fact that my taxi driver appeared to have just landed in Cape Town from outer space, having no local knowledge at all coupled with the inability to read a map! After driving around in circles and two desperate calls to Lou, I got out of my cab and waited for Lou and her very helpful taxi driver to come and rescue me!
We arrived at the riding centre 45 minutes late but ended up having our own session and more fun as a result. “Storm” was my aptly named pony who rolled his eyes back at me to assess his chances of getting away with being naughty. I gave him a firm but friendly stare back and we struck a deal that as long as I had my balance he could canter all he liked but the second he felt me lose my grip he had to slow down to walk. I gave him a good pat on the neck, he nodded and I kidded myself that we had an 'understanding'!
Once saddled and mounted we all headed off in loose procession for the beach. A glorious 2 hours followed with the 4 of us trotting then, (once our guide was sure we weren't going to break our necks) cantering off along the wide, flat, sandy landing strip that was Noordhoek Beach. The wind whipped off the white foaming tops of the waves, across the surface of the beach and through the flying manes of both the horses and us. The setting was stunning, the sea in it's stormy state had never looked more beautiful and once again I was thankful to be here, having yet another breathtaking experience. Storm behaved himself on the whole and even though I had to chastise him for not slowing down when our guide told us to, he rightly looked at me as if to say “well you had your balance so I thought we agreed I could go for it”!
We finished the evening off at a restaurant in Camps Bay that Lou had heard about. It was called “The Codfather” and unsurprisingly it's speciality was fish! There was no menu – the waiter calls you up to the counter which is laden with all kinds of fresh fish, oysters, prawns, lobster, langoustines etc. You basically say how many or how much you want and they cut your fish fillet to size and cook it for you! Between us we had King prawns, Langoustnes, Butter fish, King-clip, Tuna and Sole. The food was delicious and the atmosphere perfect. We knew we'd arrived when we saw actress Mia Farrow with three other 'thespians' we recognised but couldn't name, sit down at the table next to us. We snuck secret glances in their direction with envy until we realised they all ordered the tiniest bit of sushi and although they followed it up with desserts, more than half of those were left on the plate. Our envy was snuffed out in a trice and we appreciated that a life where you have to constantly watch the pounds for the camera – not to mention people in restaurants surreptitiously peering at you, was really not worth the fame and supposed fortune!!
Actually it was nice to be back working on the boat again. The morning passed moving sails up to the loft to check them over, sorting out the returned clean laundry for everyone and doing a small sail repair on our Yankee 1 foresail – which after patching required hand-stitching. I took great pleasure in doing it and Mike R who came along to inspect the result declared it to be “the cutest little sail repair” he'd ever seen!
There was just time to jump in taxi to Lou's hotel to the jump in another taxi to go to the horse-riding place. Kirsten had been coming in to pick us up but a last minute change of plan meant a couple of frantic (and expensive) taxi rides. This was not helped by the fact that my taxi driver appeared to have just landed in Cape Town from outer space, having no local knowledge at all coupled with the inability to read a map! After driving around in circles and two desperate calls to Lou, I got out of my cab and waited for Lou and her very helpful taxi driver to come and rescue me!
We arrived at the riding centre 45 minutes late but ended up having our own session and more fun as a result. “Storm” was my aptly named pony who rolled his eyes back at me to assess his chances of getting away with being naughty. I gave him a firm but friendly stare back and we struck a deal that as long as I had my balance he could canter all he liked but the second he felt me lose my grip he had to slow down to walk. I gave him a good pat on the neck, he nodded and I kidded myself that we had an 'understanding'!
Once saddled and mounted we all headed off in loose procession for the beach. A glorious 2 hours followed with the 4 of us trotting then, (once our guide was sure we weren't going to break our necks) cantering off along the wide, flat, sandy landing strip that was Noordhoek Beach. The wind whipped off the white foaming tops of the waves, across the surface of the beach and through the flying manes of both the horses and us. The setting was stunning, the sea in it's stormy state had never looked more beautiful and once again I was thankful to be here, having yet another breathtaking experience. Storm behaved himself on the whole and even though I had to chastise him for not slowing down when our guide told us to, he rightly looked at me as if to say “well you had your balance so I thought we agreed I could go for it”!
We finished the evening off at a restaurant in Camps Bay that Lou had heard about. It was called “The Codfather” and unsurprisingly it's speciality was fish! There was no menu – the waiter calls you up to the counter which is laden with all kinds of fresh fish, oysters, prawns, lobster, langoustines etc. You basically say how many or how much you want and they cut your fish fillet to size and cook it for you! Between us we had King prawns, Langoustnes, Butter fish, King-clip, Tuna and Sole. The food was delicious and the atmosphere perfect. We knew we'd arrived when we saw actress Mia Farrow with three other 'thespians' we recognised but couldn't name, sit down at the table next to us. We snuck secret glances in their direction with envy until we realised they all ordered the tiniest bit of sushi and although they followed it up with desserts, more than half of those were left on the plate. Our envy was snuffed out in a trice and we appreciated that a life where you have to constantly watch the pounds for the camera – not to mention people in restaurants surreptitiously peering at you, was really not worth the fame and supposed fortune!!
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